ATLANTA —June 30, 2014— As schools strive to ensure that students meet and exceed today’s more rigorous standards, teachers need tools at their fingertips for measuring student progress. Today at ISTE 2014 in Atlanta, Pearson announced an expansion of its Formative Item Bank to more than 60,000 items, including thousands of innovative technology enhanced items – the same kind that students will see in next-generation assessments.

These interactive items require students to drag and drop their answer choices or click on areas of the screen to select one or more answers, leveraging technology to probe student learning.

The item bank is now integrated with Schoolnet, Pearson’s award-winning suite of data-driven education software that enables educators to align student assessment, curriculum and instruction; guide collaborative, data-informed discussion; and enable targeted instruction for all learners.

Now educators can quickly and easily use Schoolnet to create tests and quizzes targeted to meet their specific school or district needs across the curriculum, in English/language arts, math, science and social studies. They can also collaborate with other teachers in Schoolnet to share these assessments for learning.

“Tests and quizzes have long been a part of a student’s school experience. Teachers rely on the results to discover if their students are grasping material, determine who needs more instruction or help and decide which students are ready to move on to the next level,” said Alistair Van Moere, president of the Knowledge Technologies group of Pearson. “With this expansion of our formative assessment item bank coupled with the power of the Schoolnet platform, educators can develop classroom tests that align to rigorous standards to help them ensure that all students are on the path to success in college and career.”

The items in the Pearson Formative Assessment Item Bank are aligned to the standards of 30 states and more than 26,000 were developed specifically to align to the Common Core State Standards. In addition, the items feature original passages as well as authentic literature and colorful, interesting graphics to engage students.

Pearson is the world’s leading learning company, with 40,000 employees in more than 80 countries working to help people of all ages to make measurable progress in their lives through learning. For more information about Pearson, visit http://www.pearson.com.